The theme of A. B. Frost's "The Democratic Trojan Horse" is replicated
by his artistic colleague Thomas Nast in this cartoon, appearing in the same
issue of Harper's Weekly as the previous illustration. Their message is that
Democratic presidential nominee Winfield Hancock, while a giant in his own
stature, is controlled by the disreputable and dangerous forces of the
Democratic party. Here, Nast translates a widely recognizable motif from
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) into a commentary on the 1880
presidential race. General Hancock appears in uniform as the title character in
a scene from the beginning of the book when the shipwrecked Gulliver awakes to
find himself bound by the miniature Lilliputians. The quote reinforces the twin
notions of Hancock's potential strength and his willing submissiveness to keep
it in check.